


Split-Hearted

by Poetry



Series: Dæmorphing [27]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Andalites, Autism Spectrum, Family, Gender Issues, Other, Sharing a Body, Voluntary Controllers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29309199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/pseuds/Poetry
Summary: Tobias and Rachel learn what it means to be split-hearted.
Relationships: Rachel (Animorphs)/Tobias (Animorphs)
Series: Dæmorphing [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/8983
Comments: 32
Kudos: 63
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	Split-Hearted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pheonix89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pheonix89/gifts).



> This was written for the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction for pheonix89, who wanted a sequel to Putting Down Roots. So here is a continuation of the development of Tobias and Rachel's relationship.
> 
> Many thanks to litluminary for beta reading, to Lewis for the sensitivity consult, and to crowles for transcribing my dictation of the story. 
> 
> Content notes at the end.

** 1\. Tobias **

_ Set between The Tree of Life and Welcome Home _

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” Rachel said, leaning back against Abineng, all casual, as if that were an easy thing to say to another person.

<Um,> I said. <Aren’t we on a date right now?>

Rachel rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a date. This is hanging out. Boyfriends and girlfriends can just hang out. I’m talking about a normal date. You know, dinner and a movie?”

A good boyfriend would be thrilled that his girlfriend had asked him out on a date like that. A good boyfriend would say, “of course, honey,” and come up with an idea for a movie or a restaurant. A good boyfriend would take her hand and kiss her. The thing is, I’m not a very good boyfriend. Instead of being happy, a wave of dread came over me that I couldn't explain.

I realized that Valentine's Day was coming up; that that was why Rachel had asked. I had almost forgotten the date. It’s easy for me to forget. I tried to picture myself at a restaurant with candles with Rachel, surrounded by other couples, and the image looked so wrong in my head. I tried to come up with a reason, any reason, why we couldn’t do it. <We can’t,> I said. <It would look weird. My human morph is still thirteen, and you’re, what, fifteen and a half now? You’d look like you were dating a little kid. What would people say?>

“I don’t think it’s that weird,” Rachel said. “Anyway, Elhariel is settled, that makes you look more adult. But if you’re really worried, I’m sure you could get permission from some of the refugees in the valley to make a morph out of their DNA. You could try Miguel and Melissa. I’m sure you could ask Ax for advice to make sure that the morph doesn't come out too girly.”

That thought made it even worse. I tried to picture myself as a mix of Miguel and Melissa. My mind bounced off the thought— I couldn’t put it together, as if there were a force field around the very idea.

<I don’t want Miguel’s DNA,> I said. <He’s a dick. He bullied me.>

I saw Abineng’s ears droop, like a sad dog, and a wave of panic came over me. I had to rescue the situation somehow. I couldn't let Rachel and Abi feel so bad about this. <Does a date have to be in front of other people to be a real date?> I said. <Can we have a just-the-two-of-us date?>

Rachel’s voice went very small— too small for her body. It didn’t fit. “Why don’t you want to be seen on a date with me?”

<It’s not about you,> I said desperately. For once, I wished I were in human morph so I could reach out to her, so I could show her somehow with my face and hands and Elhariel that it wasn’t what she thought. <It’s about me. I don’t know how to be a normal person in public. Not anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.>

“I don’t care if you’re a normal person in public,” Rachel said fiercely.

<I guess I do,> I said quietly. <I’m not as brave as you, Rachel.>

Abineng’s ears slowly lifted back up. “Oohhh-kayy,” Rachel said slowly, tracing her fingers up and down his bristly mane. “What about a picnic date, out in the woods?”

I seized on it. <Yeah!> I said. <A picnic date.> It was better than what I’d been thinking of, which was just to morph into a Yeerk and infest her and sit with her as she went to a cafe alone. It was probably the way I would feel most comfortable on a date, but I knew it was too weird to say out loud.

Rachel brightened up. “Ooh, what should I bring on the picnic? What do you like?”

I froze up again. I’ve always been a picky eater. Lots of foods were always too gooey or crunchy for me, and since I became a hawk it’s gotten much worse. Human tastes feel so overwhelming to me. I thought back to foods I used to eat as a little kid, ones I actually liked. <Applesauce,> Elhariel blurted out, immediately embarrassing me, because it was so babyish. <And bread, and soft cheese, and lemonade, but not too sweet. The kind that actually tastes like lemons.>

Rachel beamed at me.

<What?> I said.

“You never say what you want,” she said. “It’s nice to hear you say you want something, just for yourself.”

<Oh,> I said. If I’d been human, Elhariel would have hidden her face in her wing. I never wanted Rachel to feel like I was demanding anything of her, but she was happy, and I couldn’t contest that. If only I had any real idea of how to make her feel that way more often.

** 2\. Rachel **

_ Set during Destroyer of Worlds _

It was three days after the vote on the Yeerk kryptonite. After we’d gone on the stupid Costco trip. After I found out that maybe Marco had a gay crush on Jake. Whatever. I was fixating on other people’s drama to avoid my own.

I was pulling a Tobias and morphing eagle, going on long flights just to get away from myself. But then on one of those flights, I saw Tobias, and finally it all came flooding out.

<Why did you do it?> I said, glaring at the rust-red fan of his feathers.

<Why did I do what?> Tobias said, but I could tell that he knew what I meant.

Somewhere in Z-space, Abineng was tossing his nothing-horns and scuffing his nothing-hooves in the nothing. As an eagle, all I could do was whistle-screech in the completely not majestic way that bald eagles do. <Don’t bullshit me, Tobias,> I said. <Why did you do it? Was it so your mom wouldn’t feel all alone? Was that it?>

We were flying over the valley toward the waterfall at the southern end. Tobias soared upward, avoiding the spray that followed. <Why do you think?> Tobias said. <It’s wrong. If we do this to the Yeerks, we’re no better than the Andalites.>

<Of course it’s _wrong_ ,> I said, chasing him up and out of the valley. <You think I have no conscience left? Is that it? I know it’s wrong. But there are two hundred people in this valley, and we’re up against a spaceship fleet and who knows how many thousands of Yeerks with hosts. We can’t win this by doing the right thing. You _know_ this by now.>

Tobias circled back around along the cliffs lining the valley. Below us, I could see Hork-Bajir and their children swinging through the trees, small shapes rustling the branches.

Tobias said, <You know it’s not the Yeerks we’re actually afraid of, right? It’s the Andalites. You know what happens when their fleet comes and we’re still a bunch of pathetic refugees like this. We saw that timeline. We’re afraid of the Andalites because of the terrible things they might do. So if we become like them… aren’t we the thing that we’re afraid of?>

<Tell me another way,> I said. <Tell me another way we can win, and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.>

Tobias went quiet. He didn’t have another way. Of course he didn’t. And Loren didn’t, either, or anyone else who had voted against the virus.

<You have to know it’s the only way,> I said. <You know, and you voted against it anyway so you won’t have to be like me. So you can keep your hands, or—wings, or whatever—clean.>

<I don’t think I’m better than you, Rachel,> Tobias said.

<Oh, yeah?> I said. I found myself diving for him, the wind screaming past my head. I don’t know what I was thinking, what I meant to do. I was riding a wave of raw aggression. I didn’t know how to let it out.

Tobias pulled away from me easily. Of course he did. He disappeared upward, far out of my grasp. <I don’t know how to prove it to you,> Tobias said. <You just have to believe me.>

Suddenly, I felt horribly ashamed. Why was I diving after my own boyfriend like I was going to attack him? What was wrong with me? <I don’t believe you,> I said. <I don’t.>

<Then get in my head,> Tobias said suddenly. <I’ll show you. I’ll prove it to you.>

Suddenly, everything felt backwards and wrong. That hadn’t ever been the reason why we did that, sharing our minds – what, to prove a point? It was so wrong of me to make it about that. <Never mind,> I said. <Let’s just not. I can’t do this. Let’s just… I need a break.> I peeled off into the forest, flying sharply away. I couldn’t be his girlfriend when I was like this. He deserved better.

** 3\. Tobias **

_ Set between “Destroyer of Worlds” and “The Cost of the Fight” _

After Rachel dumped me, I spent a lot more time with Ax and Mertil, and sometimes Loren, when she wanted to join us. It took a while for Mertil to warm up to us. He was a private kind of guy. Or maybe living as a _vecol_ made him that way. Like it made Loren that way, at least for a while.

The first bunch of times, we just hung out quietly, Ax running next to him and me flying overhead, hardly any words between us, even though sometimes I wanted to tell Ax the whole story and ask him whether Rachel would take me back. And then one day I saw him and Ax do the morning ritual together, and Mertil did it differently from Ax, and even differently from the way Loren said Elfangor used to do it.

So I very shyly asked him why, and that’s what drew him out.

<It is the morning ritual for a _vecol_ ,> he said.

<And how do you learn it,> I said, surprised at my own daring, <when _vecols_ are supposed to be alone all the time? It’s not like you could have had a mentor who taught you, right?>

<No,> Mertil said. <I read about it in a guide for _vecols_. There is one carved in _shormitor_ in a grove of trees in the land set aside for _vecols_. Of course, I did not go to that grove, stranded here as I was. But there is a copy of the guide in our databases. We managed to salvage some of those databases from our downed ship.>

From then on, I could get Mertil to start talking if I asked him something about Andalite culture. Ax had already taught me some things. Mertil was older, and knew a lot more. He told me about the process of courting suitors that Andalites go through to get married. He told me about how Andalite mothers and fathers are different from human mothers and fathers, and how Andalite cousins are different from human cousins. He told me about _feshlath,_ the great negotiators between the nomadic herds of Andalites past. One day, I asked him about _djafid_ , the thought speech song that Elfangor had been so good at.

<There are many kinds of _djafid_ ,> Mertil said. <Each Andalite culture has its own tradition. And there are some traditions of _djafid_ that once existed and are now lost to us, because back in those times we had no ways of recording thought speech. It is said there was once a time when Andalite herds would sing war- _djafid_ when they went into battle, to intimidate the enemy and raise their spirits for the fight to come.>

I was in morph as Ax when he said this to me. I had started to take to morphing him when Mertil taught these lessons for me. It started when Mertil told me about Andalite drumming, and said he could only explain it if I morphed Andalite and tried it myself. Maybe it was because I was in Andalite morph, that the endless wellspring of optimism made it easier to believe that I had a right to learn about his culture from him.

When Mertil told me about that ancient war- _djafid_ , I suddenly thought to Elhariel, _Rachel would love to hear about this. I wish she were here._

Riding the wave of Andalite optimism, Elhariel said, _I should go get her so she can listen!_

_We can't!_ I said. _Rachel and Abineng don't want us back. Not like that. Rachel just wants to be an Animorph with me, like she is with Marco._

_Tobias,_ Elhariel said. _Sometimes people do want to take us back. Loren and Ax did._

Maybe being in Andalite morph made me braver. Maybe it helped me imagine myself doing what Ax would do, the straightforward but hard thing. I said to Mertil, <Is it okay if I go get Rachel?>

Mertil startled. <What? Why do you wish to bring her?>

<Because I care about her a lot,> I said, <and I just want to share a little bit of this with her. Is that okay?>

I looked at Ax with my stalk eyes, pleading a little bit, but he shook his head a little, human-style. <This is Mertil’s decision,> he said to me privately. <He is the _vecol_ , and it is his solitude.>

<Bring her, then,> Mertil said, <if she can be quiet.>

<Thank you,> I said, heartfelt, and raced off to the valley, not even knowing if Rachel would say yes.

I galloped off toward the human encampment. It was around dinnertime, so she would probably be at the fire with everyone else. I got to the encampment and saw Loren and Jaxom warming up by the fire. She waved, and I waved back. She laughed at the image of an Andalite waving like a human. I knew she knew it was me, not Ax.

I saw that Rachel was in the middle of dinner with her family. I suddenly felt terribly embarrassed about interrupting her. I tried to make a graceful exit, as if I had just been passing by and decided to change direction. But Rachel caught sight of me, tilted her head, squinting her eyes a little. She was at the edge of the fire— she always was, to make room for Abineng. Abi came closer, sniffing. I tried to stand all stiff and warrior-like, like Ax, but then Abi came near and said, <Is that you, Tobias?>

I froze. Then I said, all at once, <Come—I want to show you something,> hoping desperately that she would stop giving me the silent treatment, that she would take me back.

“Can Rachel bring her food?” Abi said.

<It’s kind of far,> I said apologetically.

Rachel shoveled the rest of her food into her mouth and swallowed. She fobbed her dirty plate off on Jordan and followed me into the woods.

“Where are we going?” she said. She was smiling. It was the same look she had when I told her what I wanted to eat on our picnic date.

<Ax and Mertil are teaching me about Andalite stuff,> I said. <I… thought you might like it?>

“Yeah,” Rachel said, still smiling. “I might.”

<Why did you dump me?> I said in a rush.

Rachel blinked. "You didn't know?"

<You never told me.>

"You wanted me to infest you," Rachel said. "Just to prove a point. I didn't want us to be like that. When we do that with each other, it's supposed to be something special. Not a way to win an argument."

<Oh. Okay. I won't do that, then.>

_See?_ Elhariel said. _It was that easy._

I walked through the woods carefully, and Rachel said, “Oh come on, just run. I can keep up.” I let out some of the Andalite speed, and she took after me, full tilt, her hair flying out behind her, Abineng pulling even ahead of me, right at the edge of the bond between them. Again, there was some part of me that wanted to be in human morph, so that Elhariel could fly over my head, keeping pace. But there was no way I could have run remotely as fast as Rachel, with her athlete’s body.

When we got to the spot where Ax and Mertil were standing by the creek running through the valley, Rachel doubled over, hands on knees, to get her breath back. “We’re here!” Abi said. “So what were you talking about?”

I’m still not an expert on Andalite body language, but Mertil looked a little startled by the whole thing. He said, <I was talking about _djafid_. It is said that there were once ancient war songs sung that way, to stir the hearts for a battle ahead. There have been many attempts to reconstruct the war- _djafid_ , which are written about in old _shormitor_.>

<Those are carvings by tailblades in trees,> I told Rachel privately.

<It is hard to say which of these reconstructions might be accurate or not,> Mertil said. <But my favorite such reconstruction is by Feldrid, a split-hearted Wurilit Andalite of the Untamed Wilds.>

There were a lot of words there I didn’t understand, but I grabbed onto the first one. <Split-hearted,> I said. <What does that mean?>

Ax answered that question. He said, <Split-hearted Andalites are those whose hearts are split between genders. One heart female, one heart male.>

<What?> I said. <How is that possible?>

Mertil said, <The story goes that split-hearted Andalites are created when two twins of different genders merge in the womb into one child. I do not know if this is a phenomenon that happens among humans. It does sometimes in our people. But the story was told before we understood the biology of such things. It is a story like the legends of the Ellimists: it is not told because it is true, but because it is beyond truth. It is a feeling in some Andalite hearts, like love. It cannot be wholly explained.>

I felt as if my mind were on fire. I couldn’t think. I was feeling twenty different things, and I couldn’t sort them out. It was as if there were a spotlight on me. I had to be glowing through my skin like a sun with all the things I was feeling. I wanted to be alone. Was Rachel looking at me? Could she tell that I was feeling so many things? I shouldn’t be reacting like this. Why was this story making me feel this way? I couldn’t explain it, the way I couldn’t explain anything about myself.

<And this is… normal?> I said slowly.

<It is not common,> Ax said, <but it is normal. Is this not the normal state for humans, with you and your daemons? One male, one female?>

“Well…” Rachel said. “Yeah. I guess the weird thing is when humans _aren’t_ split-hearted. Like, Sarah’s daemon’s always changing what gender he says he is. He’s a boy right now, but she was a girl last week. My family’s used to it by now, but most people tell Zyanya he should just be a boy, so he and Sarah can be balanced or something.”

<That is a little different, I suppose,> said Mertil. <For the Andalites of the Great Gardens, all our fruit-bearing Guide Trees are female, and most varieties of Guide Trees do bear fruit at some time in their lives. So most Andalites, male, female, or split-hearted, have a female Guide Tree, and this is no imbalance. Why should it be? Male and female are not opposites. Split-hearted Andalites are always both male and female in their hearts. The two twins conjoined, coexisting. That is the way it was explained to me by a potential spouse I once courted who was split-hearted.>

He went on to tell the story. I wasn’t listening. I had a stalk eye on Rachel. She wasn’t looking at me weirdly. She wasn’t really looking at me at all. Her eyes were on Mertil. Abineng was looking at me, but it was the kind of look that was a smile in his eyes, nothing shocked or worried, so he must not have noticed.

I couldn’t be alone. If I suddenly stormed off suddenly, it would be too suspicious. But a thought was brewing in my head. A dangerous thought, a stupid thought; something I shouldn’t have been thinking. But I had to try it.

I didn't get around to it until a couple of days later, when I was due to take a shift guarding the Ralek River with Tila Fashat, one of the morphing Hork-Bajir. That was when I took my chance.

I went to the lab and landed on top of the cabinet with a rattle, which made Estrid flinch. I told Lourdes that she could take a load off while I kept my eye on Estrid for a bit. Lourdes looked relieved to have a break, at least as far as I could tell from her weird hologram. When Lourdes was gone, Estrid said, <What do you wish to ask me?>

<What?> I said. <Ask you?>

<Oh, come now,> Estrid said. <You can stop pretending. None of you Animorphs wish to spend any time alone with me unless you want something.>

Well, it was true enough.

<You have my DNA,> I said, <so you could look at the Yoort DNA in there. My human DNA is in there too, right?>

<Yes…?> Estrid said slowly, as if she wasn’t sure where I was going with this.

<Is my human DNA... normal?> I asked.

Estrid snorted through her nostrils. <How should I know? I am no human doctor, to know what is normal for your species.>

So much for that, then. It was a stupid idea, anyway. Mertil had said being split-hearted wasn’t just about biology, anyway. And anyway, I wasn’t an Andalite. it didn’t apply to me.

<You have my DNA,> I said again. <You owe me.>

That finally got Estrid’s full attention, pulling all her eyes away from her terminal. <Owe you what?> she said suspiciously.

< _Your_ DNA,> I said.

< _My_ DNA?> Estrid said, outraged. <So you can morph me and impersonate me for your amusement?>

<You could acquire _my_ DNA from my blood and impersonate me for _your_ amusement,> I said. <So it only seems fair.>

<Why would I wish to morph some Earth bird?> Estrid scoffed.

<Why would I want to morph _you_?> I said. Estrid’s eyes drifted half-closed, just for a moment. If I hadn’t been spending so much time with Mertil and Ax, I would hardly have noticed it. But by now I knew that this was an Andalite gesture showing pain, like when the skin tightens around a human’s eyes. I wished I hadn’t said that.

I went on in a softer tone. <It’s not a trick. Seriously. I want this for a Frolis maneuver. The only DNA of an Andalite my age that I’ve acquired is Ax’s. Every time I morph Andalite, I look exactly like him. I want something unique, for myself.>

<Very well,> said Estrid, her icy cool back in place. <That is acceptable. But we are doing this in front of Gonrod, so I have a witness in case you try something while I am in an acquiring trance.>

I didn’t want to involve any more people in this than I had to, but I couldn’t blame Estrid for her paranoia. Not when I was equally paranoid of her.

Gonrod boredly agreed to be a witness to me acquiring Estrid. I landed on her back to acquire her— her upper body was too delicate to hold my weight properly. It was strange to focus on her the way you have to when acquire an animal’s DNA.

I thought about all the things that made her different from Ax. Her tail blade was smaller, delicate, precise, like a scalpel. Her eyes were dark, unlike Ax’s mottled green-brown. Her whole body seemed built for speed and precision rather than strength. She held herself differently from Ax. Not with the stiffness of an Andalite warrior, but an easy slouch, except when she was focusing on her research, when she seemed to lean in her entire body towards what she was focused on.

Estrid came back to herself and said grouchily, <Get off me, Animorph.>

<Nothing untoward occurred,> Gonrod told Estrid.

<Enjoy your morph,> Estrid said breezily. <You will be much more elegant with my DNA in the mix.>

But I felt as if something untoward _had_ happened. I hadn’t told anyone about this, and I wouldn’t. I was going to go try out this morph by myself. To combine Estrid and Ax’s DNA into something, well… _girly_. The way Rachel said that my mixed morph of Miguel and Melissa shouldn’t be.

I would do it on my own, just to figure out what it might feel like to be split-hearted.

** 4\. Rachel **

_ Set during Chapter 4 of The Abyss _

<Get off the bridge, human,> said Gonrod. <You do not know what you are playing with.>

I spun around to face him. The patterns cut into his fur were a total hack job, uneven and ragged. If they were supposed to look intimidating or something, they were failing. I snarled. “I wasn’t touching anything,” I said. “I just wanted to look at it. There's nothing else to do down here.” Nothing else except talk to my family, which I couldn’t do because I’d killed another kid again. Or talk to the other Animorphs, which I couldn’t do because I’d killed another kid again.

<Some of the controls are triggered by motions,> Gonrod said. <You are putting yourself in danger.>

I scoffed. “What kind of idiot has motion-triggered controls on a spaceship? You could just wave your tail in the wrong direction and blow yourself up.”

<Yes,> said Gonrod, <which is why we only allow trained warriors on our bridges. Step _away_.>

Abineng tossed his head and scuffed his hoof on the shiny floor. I was ready for a fight. Bring it on. Who was Gonrod to me? He was probably just another murderer, like every other Andalite I’d met except Ax and Mertil. Maybe this time I could at least murder someone who really deserved it. I rested my hands on Abineng’s flank, feeling the muscles move beneath the skin. It felt _good_.

A flutter of wings and displaced air. <Rachel! There you are!> Tobias said, coming to a landing, talons skidding on the floor. <I was looking all over for you!>

Angry bile slowly crawled back down my throat, replaced with horrible, creeping shame. “Well,” I told him, “you found me. Let’s go.”

I stormed off the bridge. Tobias struggled to get back in the air from the ground, his wings flapping and flapping. He managed to get himself up to Abineng’s back. I saw the hairs along Abi’s back stand up with Tobias’ weight. I wasn’t ready for this. I would never be ready for this.

<I volunteered us for an insane mission,> Tobias said. <I figured I should tell you about it.>

That made the bile settle even further down in my stomach, churning, but quiet for now. An insane mission. Yes, that was exactly what I needed right now.

I walked out into the cool, damp Hive. “Okay,” I bit out. “What is it?”

<I’m going to morph a Taxxon,> Tobias said, looking up at me from Abi’s back. <And I’m going to need you to be in my head when I do it.>

I shook my head and kept trudging as quickly as I could through the mud. Not because I had anywhere to go, but because it felt good to move. “Why don’t you just get one of the Yeerks from the Pool to do it? I bet one of them’s had a Taxxon host before. They’d know better than me.”

<Maybe they would,> Tobias said. <But you know how to control yourself. And I trust you more than I trust any of them.>

I laughed in disbelief. “Why? Why would you trust me? You think I can _control myself?_ Why?”

Tobias looked so strange in the weird cavern glow of the Living Hive. Not like a real-life hawk. More like a small dinosaur, his shape unfamiliar. <This is about the school, isn’t it,> he said.

“It’s about the school. It’s about a hundred other things. It’s about David.” Abineng shook his mane roughly. “It’s about the inside of my head. I’ve never shown you all of it, Tobias. Only the parts you can handle. What happened at the school isn’t the disease, it’s the symptom.”

<Rachel,> Tobias said, <You are not a _disease_.>

I just stared at him. I didn’t have to say anything for him to know that I felt like one.

Abi moved his head, and the shadow of his horn fell across Tobias’ face. <Rachel,> he said, <I know you like the fight. I know you like it in a way I don’t. But you didn’t kill Mary because it was _fun_. You did it for the same reason Jake left Tom behind. Because both you and Jake have decided you have to be the ones to make the hard choices.>

“I didn’t just decide that,” I said. “The rest of you wanted me to decide that. Don’t tell me you didn't. I’ve been in your head, too.”

<I know,> Tobias said. <So why do you have to be the one to apologize, and not me?>

My brain finally caught up to what Tobias was asking of me. We were going to morph Taxxon. A _Taxxon_. That _hunger_ , stronger than any hunger I’d ever felt. How could I ever hope to control that?

“We need to practice,” I said. “Can we get someone to watch over us in case we totally lose it?”

Tobias stared at me, startled. <You want to _practice?_ This is an all-new side of Rachel. I like it.>

“It’s not a new side,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. “I was an A student once, you know. And on the gymnastics team. I love practice. I’m the _queen_ of practice.”

<Okay, Practice Queen,> Tobias said. <I’ll go get Ax. I know he still thinks it’s gross when you infest me.>

“Grossing each other out on purpose,” I said. “Now that’s real family stuff. I’m touched.”

But it was also kind of a relief. Of all the other Animorphs, I knew what I did to Mary mattered the least to Ax. Not because he didn’t think that human lives were important, but he was a step removed, and he knew what it meant to be a warrior. He would have been able to do it too, if he’d had to.

Tobias flew off to get Ax. I leaned against Abi. “Can we do this?” I asked him.

_I kind of hope not,_ he said. _Then we could just fob it off on a Peace Movement Yeerk and not have to think about it._

Tobias came back in human morph, Ax stepping as daintily as he could through the mud behind him. <Do I need to be here for this part?> Ax complained.

“Yup,” Tobias said, his human face deadpan as ever. “No getting out of it.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Ax’s disgust at us had been such a flashpoint for drama; it felt good that Tobias could joke about it now without worrying that it would tear his family apart.

I began the morph to Yeerk. I started to sweat slime everywhere, and I laughed again when Ax recoiled. Then my eyes disappeared, and sadly, I couldn’t see his reactions anymore.

The mud of the Living Hive floor felt weirdly good, not nearly as terrible as things usually felt when I first morphed Yeerk and I wasn’t inside Tobias’ head yet. Tobias scooped me up from a mud puddle and seemed to wipe me on his hands a little bit. I couldn’t blame him; I wouldn’t want that mud in _my_ ear.

When I got in his head, I felt him quickly shove down a bunch of feelings and thoughts and memories. I held myself back from them as much as I could. All I got was a taste of shame, bitter and lingering.

Tobias had to demorph to hawk first. I felt his relief at being a hawk again, and his dread at becoming the Taxxon. But he did it anyway, trying to hold that image of the dripping teeth and red jelly eyes in his mind. He sagged and deflated like a tent being taken down as his hawk skeleton went away, a ball of organs and meat getting larger and larger. As the exoskeleton came in, so did the hunger.

The hunger.

_ The Hunger. _

If he didn’t eat something, he would die. He was starving to death all around me. He looked for food. Desperately, I helped him— he needed it. I could feel it almost as if it were mine. The only food he could see was very, very pointy, the sharp blade aimed right at him. There was no choice— he had to. I encouraged him to do it. He ran toward the food, and the food fought back.

A stinging gash along his front, between his pincer legs. He had enough of a warrior's instinct to know that this was a fight he couldn’t win.

<You can't win this fight. You’ll lose to the hunger,> I told him. <You’ll just have to accept it. There are worse ways to go.>

It was a familiar thought. I’d thought about it before, late at night. What would happen when I finally faced the fight I couldn’t win. I had decided that it would be all right, that I could have the grace to accept it. I shared that feeling with Tobias, and he sank to the ground, letting the Hunger enclose him in its jaws, accepting his fate.

But he didn’t die. He didn’t die, even though it felt like he would, like his body was so starved it was on the edge of failure. It was a strange feeling, being so sure that we would die any moment, and then still not dying.

Another feeling that I’d had before. That Tobias had had, too.

<I am impressed,> Ax said. <I learned at the Academy that a Taxxon morph is impossible to control, and yet you only attacked me once. How are you accomplishing it?>

That was when I was finally able to get some perspective on the situation. Tobias wasn’t going to die. It was just the Hunger, an illusion created by the Taxxon morph’s totally skewed biology.

<Great,> Tobias said. <We proved it worked, can we _please_ demorph now?>

I could feel his total misery. A memory had surfaced to his mind of being a hawk captured by a raccoon, washing him, about to eat him. That was how he felt right now.

<When did _that_ happen?> I said. He changed the subject by demorphing.

When Tobias was demorphed again, I could see the shine of Taxxon blood on Ax’s blade. Tobias’ body shivered with my disgust.

<Very well,> Ax said, <I recommend Tobias to your care,> before he walked away.

And that approval, from someone who hated me morphing Yeerk as much as Ax did, felt more real than any assurance Tobias could have given me.

<Can we go check on Sara?> Tobias said. <She seemed really upset this morning. I'm worried about her.>

_ He's right _ , Abineng scolded me.  _ Change is really hard for Sara, and this change is one that none of us like. Is this crawling shame feeling really more important than making her feel safe? How is Tobias better at being a big sister than you? _

“Yeah,” I said, face red with shame. “Let’s go.”

Tobias rode on my shoulder as I trudged through the mud back to the Ralek River. My family was staying in Arbat’s old quarters on the top level. It was so cramped with the four of them in there that Abi and I stood in the hall with the door open. Sara was lying facedown on the ground with Zyanya lying on top of her as a big fluffy sheepdog. Dad sat cross-legged next to her, Gheselle in his lap, talking to her softly. Mom was trying to get Jordan to put down some random alien junk she’d found in Arbat’s room, Caedhren hissing short-temperedly at Tseycal.

<It’s safe, Naomi,> Tobias said. <It’s an excerpt from a poetic _shormitor_ called The _Feshlath_ of— > At our blank looks, he said, <It’s just art, it won’t blow up or anything.>

“It doesn’t matter,” Mom said tiredly. “The Andalite who lived here is dead, right? You can’t just go through a dead man’s things, Jordan. It’s not right.”

I didn’t really care what Jordan did with Arbat’s stuff, but it was making Mom upset, so I glared at Jordan and held out my hand. Tseycal folded down his wings, and Jordan passed me the thing and fell into a sulk in the corner.

Dad looked up at us with desperate relief. “The showers are free for the first time today. Can you two look after Sara while your mother and I get this mud off?”

I wanted to tell him that there was no point, he was just going to get muddy again anyway, since we now lived in a mudhole and all, but also, he and Mom were the ones dealing with Sara’s breakdown while I was too busy with my own. If it made them feel better for ten minutes, hell, why not?

Tobias glided down from my shoulder to the floor next to Sara. <Hey, Sara. It’s me, Tobias.>

“We got it,” I said, and stepped back with Abi to make room for Mom and Dad to go out.

When they left, I gave Jordan the Andalite art back and sat down next to Sara and Zya. Abi stayed out in the hall so he wouldn’t take up all the space. “What did you eat today?” I asked Sara. It was always the first thing I asked when I was looking after her and she had a meltdown like this. Sometimes it was because she didn’t eat enough because all the food was icky.

“Spam and peas,” Sara mumbled into the floor.

<Is there anything we can do to make it better?> Tobias said.

Zya looked up at me with big dark dog eyes. “Can Sara braid your hair?”

I touched my head and grimaced. “Mine is way too muddy.”

Zya looked at Tobias. “What about yours?”

Tobias looked away. <My hair is short.>

“That’s okay,” Zya said. “She can do little braids.”

A pause. <Okay,> Tobias said. <Close your eyes.> He morphed to human while Sara squeezed her eyes shut and Jordan stared at the Andalite art in her hands. In human morph, his floppy, frizzy blond hair was just longer than his earlobes. Not too short for little braids. He sat cross-legged, Elhariel perched on his knee. She said, “You can look now.”

Zyanya became a hamster, and Sara sat up, sending Zya tumbling off her back, and reached for Tobias’s hair. She separated out some thin strands near his ear and started braiding. Elhariel hopped off his knee to gently poke at Zya with her beak. Tobias’s eyes closed. I remembered when he’d been in my head when Sara had done this for me, once. I’d asked him why he liked it so much. His eyes opened, and he looked at me, maybe remembering the same thing. He said, “Why do you like braiding, Sara?”

“Hair feels nice,” Sara said. A pause as she finished one braid and started on another. “I like the patterns.”

“Me too,” Tobias said, his eyes drifting shut again. Then, in my mind, he said, <Rachel, do you think I might be autistic like Sara?>

For a second, it felt like a nonsense question. Tobias was an Animorph. Animorphs didn’t deal with human stuff, like wondering whether we might be autistic. We dealt with Animorph stuff, like wondering whether we might be monsters. But then I thought about what it felt like to be in Tobias’s brain. The way he was always off-balance, like he didn’t know where his body belonged in the world. Sara got like that sometimes; that was why she liked it when Zya became something big and pinned her down. And there was the way both of them sometimes went away inside when they couldn’t deal with things. Maybe Tobias wanted to think about human things like that right now. That was okay.

But I couldn’t say any of that out loud in front of Jordan and Sara. So I said, “The braids look good,” and when he opened his eyes, I nodded and smiled.

** 5\. Tobias **

_ Set between chapters 7 and 8 of The Abyss _

After Sai and Green Sky let me and Rachel go, they helped us get back to the Hive, guiding us through the tunnels. They didn’t say anything except, “I hope one day you wake up and do something to right the wrong that you’ve done.”

Neither of us said anything back.

Rachel wanted to say a whole bunch of four-letter words, but I pleaded with her in my head not to. At one point, Rachel and I had to stop and demorph and remorph in one of the tunnels. It was terrible, close and crushing, in the slimy, dripping tunnel, especially for Abineng. For once in her life, Rachel looked awful: smeared in muck, her eyes red.

When we got back to the Hive, we both went to sleep: her in the tent out in the Hive, and me in the little grassy feeding area next to the waterfall onboard the _Ralek River_.

When I woke up, Estrid was feeding on the grass. We looked at each other. I thought about saying something. I could tell by the slant of her stalk eyes that she was thinking of saying something, too, but neither of us did. She looked very small and tired, but there was nothing I could say that could possibly make it better.

I thought about my other self from the vision the Ellimist once sent to me. The Andalite version of me. That me didn’t have to do what I had just done. I knew there was a terrible cost. I knew that it meant the end of the Earth, to live in that other timeline. But I wanted to get a taste of what it was like to be someone who belonged somewhere, someone who didn’t have to do such terrible things.

I had a way to do that. I had an escape.

I left the ship, my wings beating hard in the dead air. I flew as far away from the _Ralek River_ as I could. I had never done this in the Living Hive before; just in the forest, before we fled. I didn’t think my Andalite morph would like it very much, but the other Andalites were surviving somehow.

I landed with my talons digging deep into the cool mud. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to ask the Hive for another splattered mole just now. My real hunger was for something deeper.

I focused on my Andalite morph, blue, delicate, strong, with a wicked scalpel of a tailblade like the talon of a golden eagle, and I felt the changes begin.

A Taxxon emerged from a tunnel nearby, at the base of the hill I had landed on, and I startled. The Taxxon stopped and stared at me, saliva dripping from its teeth. I got ready to fight or flee if I had to, but the Taxxon didn’t attack. It – no, they? Xe? Just watched.

I kept going. The Taxxons were our hosts. I wasn’t going to tell one to fuck off. I continued the morph.

Suddenly, I realized why the Taxxon was staring. When I had morphed Taxxon before, the other people morphing around me didn’t register as food. Their fluid bodies had been too foreign for the Taxxon brain to latch onto them that way. It was a strange relief for the Taxxon to see me like this. I couldn’t blame it – them – for that.

And then I was – them. My alternate self. I didn't like that I couldn't see the sky. I hated the taste of the muddy water seeping up into my hooves. I was uncomfortable, on edge, my stalk eyes tracking my Taxxon audience as they scuttled away. My tail was up. I wanted to run away, flee. I couldn't. So I just walked. And that felt good, even as uncomfortable as my other self was. They were so sure in this body, so steady on their four legs, while I was always unsteady in mine, as if I walked on a ship at sea instead of solid ground.

I had no idea, of course, whether my alternate self in the vision the Ellimist showed me was split-hearted. I wanted to believe that I would know somehow, that being my other self would give me some sense of clarity. But I didn't know. I didn't have some cosmic sign of the universe of who I was really supposed to be. Nobody did.

But I liked to imagine.

My mother, Loren, the Andalite _nothlit_ , happy to have a split-hearted child. Ax, my classmate and constant companion. My father, Elfangor, alive, there to raise me. I still had hard choices in that timeline. I was still struggling to do the right thing. Maybe being autistic would make me a _vecol_ in that timeline, even, once somebody figured it out. But that me knew who I was, and always had a family, and it wasn't so terribly hard, in that world, to live with my choices. Elhariel would be a Guide Tree, blossoming and fruiting with the seasons, and she would be beautiful in that form, too. So even though I was hungry and lonely and walking in the dark of the Hive, with nasty, alkaline water and no grass, it felt so much better to be this version of me than myself.

And then my stalk eye caught it: a human figure approaching, dim in the bioluminescence, followed by a large four-legged dæmon. I froze in my tracks. It was Rachel.

No, no, no, I was so stupid! How could I do this? I wasn't in the forest, where I knew where everything was, where I knew how to get away from everyone. Of course someone would find me, catch me doing this. Of course it would be the worst possible scenario: that Rachel would see me.

I ran in a random direction, not really thinking.

Rachel didn't run. She kept walking. When I finally started to slow down, I realized why. There was no point in running to catch me. She could always talk to me later. She had seen what she had seen; didn't make any difference whether I ran away or not.

So I came back to her.

She had gotten up on Abi's back, clinging to him like a monkey. I'd never seen her look like this. She propped up her chin on Abi's neck and looked at me, and squinted. “Tobias?” she said.

<Yeah,> I admitted, with a sinking feeling. <It's me.>

Caught. Caught. She'd caught me. It was all over. It shouldn't have felt like more of a disaster than what we'd done in the tunnels, but it did.

“What's this morph?” she said. “You look – kind of like Ax, but not really?”

I calmed down a little. Maybe she wouldn't notice. Maybe she wouldn't figure it out. <It's a Frolis morph,> I said. <A mix of DNA.>

“Okayyy,” Rachel said slowly. Her eyes looked over me again. Abineng's head was tilted, taking me in. I wished Elhariel were there to distract him. “You don't look like any of the adult warriors,” she said. “You're smaller than Ax, actually.” Her eyes widened. "You didn't get DNA from Estrid, did you?"

There it was. Of course she'd figured it out; she was too smart not to. I wanted to lie, but it would be too transparent. Rachel was right. I didn't look anything like Gonrod or Aloth or Mertil, male warriors piled on with muscle.

<Yes,> I said.

"But... why?" Rachel said, disbelieving. "Why would you want her DNA? And why would she let you?"

I wasn't going to answer the second question, even though I knew the answer. It was just because she'd wanted some positive attention for once. Or at least, I was pretty sure that was it. <I wanted to look my age,> I said, <and not just like a twin of Ax. I wanted my own Andalite morph, just like Ax has his own human morph.>

Rachel was still studying me intensely. "You look…” She trailed off, her hands running up and down as she gripped the underside of Abi's neck.

<You can just say it,> I snapped. <I look girly.>

Abineng snorted like a restless horse. "I wasn't going to say that," Rachel said quietly.

<It's what you said when you talked about me acquiring a new human morph,> I shot back.

Rachel looked confused for a moment, and I realized she couldn't even remember the moment that I'd thought about so many times. Her eyes widened as she remembered. Her eyes flashed. "Tobias, I didn't say that to hurt you. I just thought you'd want a morph that was like your old human body."

<Well, I didn't,> I said.

"But you wanted an Andalite body that looked like Estrid," Rachel said, tightening her arms around Abi’s neck.

This kept escalating. We were both getting angry. I didn't know why, but I didn't know how to stop. <I don't want an Andalite body that looks like Estrid,> I said. <I want one that looks like me.>

Rachel got down from Abi's back, landing neatly on her feet, and stared at me. "What does that mean?"

How could I explain that to her when I barely knew what it meant? She was angry and hurt, and I hated it. <I don't know,> I said.

Rachel leaned sideways, pressing her cheek into Abi, then looked at me and said, "Fine. Can I go in your head? Would you let me see?"

I was terrified. She wouldn't want to see this part of me, this part of me that couldn't be her human boyfriend. But maybe she could explain to me the parts of me I couldn't explain to myself.

<Fine,> I said. <Do it.>

She morphed. She seemed to melt into the dark reddish Taxxon mud. I almost couldn't find her on the ground, and panicked for a second. But then my delicate Andalite fingers found a thickness that was different from the rest. I picked her up, wiping her off with the fur on the back of my hand, and I put her to my Andalite ear.

<Wow,> Rachel said inside my head. <So this is what it's like to be an Andalite.>

<Kind of,> I said. <I'm not really an Andalite.>

<It's cool!> Rachel said, snapping my tail. It was easier to snap my tail now than it had been in Ax's morph. The blade was smaller, and it flew through the air easily, like a whip. <Can you show me?> Rachel said.

And I split open my hearts for her.

I let her feel the ways my human body felt uncomfortable and wrong, even before I'd ever tried any other kind of body. The way that returning to my human form after morphing hawk for the first time felt like closing myself up in prison. The way that being in her body, the way that having her spirit in me, made the physical world real in a way it had never been to my human body. I suddenly lived in objective space, my atoms pushing against all the other atoms, the oxygen in my blood exchanging with the oxygen in the air, a part of it all.

I showed her the way she made me feel when she danced with me at Peter and Nora's wedding: held, spun around, made graceful and beautiful by the way she led me around the dance floor.

I showed her the vision the Ellimist had given me of myself in the other timeline.

<Tobias,> Rachel said. <Are you… split-hearted?>

<No,> I said. The same thing I said to myself every time I started to hope I could be something different. <I'm not an Andalite.>

<Oh, Tobias,> Rachel said. <Just ask Ax. He knows you are, whether you're in this morph or not.>

The Andalites. Like my father, like Ax, like the grandparents Ax had told me a little about; like Alloran, like Arbat, like Estrid, like Mertil. If I could really be human and hawk and Andalite all at the same time, maybe it wasn't so weird after all if I was both a boy and a girl. If the twins of me, the human boy and the girl Andalite, or maybe the human girl and the boy Andalite, had merged inside the womb to make me. If Elhariel was both a fruiting Guide Tree and a female storm-petrel, like Hala Fala before her.

<I feel that way too, sometimes,> Rachel said. <Not like I'm a boy and a girl, but – but like I have two hearts. The heart of a girl, and the heart of a monster.>

I didn't say anything, but she must have seen inside me that if she did have the heart of a monster, it was a monster I loved.

Rachel crawled out of my ear then. I put her gently back on the floor of the Living Hive. She demorphed.

She reached up and touched my cheek with her hand. It felt so good, like warm sunlight on my face in this deep, dark hole in the ground.

She looked me right in my main eyes. "If there's anything that makes you a monster, it isn't this. _It isn't this_." She kissed me between my main eyes, just a dry peck, and smeared the salt of her tears on my cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: internalized transphobia, passively suicidal thoughts, intrusive violent thoughts, able-ism, violence between romantic partners.
> 
> Some people say that Tobias is autistic coded. Some people say that Tobias is a trans metaphor. I say, let all the subtext become text! :D


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